The Auschwitz Museum has thousands of mugs as part of their historical collection, but the staff found a surprise when they were preparing one of the 70 year-old relics for an exhibit.
Photo Credit: Auschwitz Museum
The mug, which had been looted by the Nazis from Jews who were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, held a secret….
Photo Credit: Auschwitz Museum/Mirosław Maciaszczyk
A ring and a necklace had been well-secured under a false bottom.
In a press release, museum director Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński reflected:
“Despite the passage of more than 70 years since the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, there are still cases of accidental discovery of objects hidden by the victims.
The Germans incessantly lied to the Jews deported for extermination. They were told about resettlement, work and life in a different location. They allowed the victims take with them little luggage.”
Photo Credit: Auschwitz Museum/Marcin Inglot
“In this way, the Germans were confident that in the luggage – including clothes and items needed for life – they would find the last valuables of the deported families.”
Photo Credit: Mirosław Maciaszczyk/Auschwitz Museum
The fact that the ring and the necklace were so well hidden brings to mind the hope that prisoners held onto, for escape, or for some kind of life after the camp.
More than a million people died at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
Most of them were Jews.
The museum plans to display the jewelry in a way that reflects “the manner in which it had been hidden by the owner, as a testimony to the fate of the Jews deported to the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.”
(h/t – NPR)
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